On Monday 25th May 2020, a black man named George Floyd was murdered by a white police officer named Derek Chauvin. George was only 46 years old – a man still in his prime. He joined the countless others who have been murdered at the hands of police and within a system that is institutionally racist.
We have seen countless cases of white men and women who have been disarmed without the authorities having to use violence. So why is it that black men and women are not afforded the same privileges as our white counterparts? Racism is a system, it’s not simply a slur or a derogatory word used against someone. It is power plus prejudice and what we see in the West is how this system is used to benefit white people, and it benefits white people because they created it to benefit them.
In the 16th and 18th century ‘race’ was created by Anglo Europeans, in particular the English. According to social scientists, the construct of race is based on “socially constructed beliefs about the inherent superiority and inferiority of groups based on racial distinctions”. Race, and racism, was created by white people with the intention of subjugating other groups of people.
Therefore racism underpins every system in the West: education, justice, the prison system, media, housing, police and much more. The reason it underpins every system is because it was introduced to ensure white privilege and prosperity and these systems were not built for black people or minorities.